Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta, center, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013. (ANDREW GOMBERT/EPA)

Today: The IPO market's big 2013 closes out with one of its biggest deals of the year and more action in Silicon Valley. Also: Facebook gains after S&P inclusion, Cisco (CSCO) and Oracle (ORCL) decline amid pessimism.

The Lead: Hilton, Nimble Storage close out big year for IPO market

A big year for initial public offerings is closing out with a bang, with one of the largest offerings of the year and yet another Silicon Valley tech IPO arriving just as expectations for 2014 begin to bubble.

This week's action is not done, either: San Jose-based Nimble Storage is expected to price its IPO Thursday night and begin trading Friday, after boosting its projected pricing range Wednesday. The company now expects to offer its initial shares at a price as high as $20, which would produce a total take of $160 million and a valuation of $1.4 billion; for updates on Nimble's IPO, check www.siliconvalley.com.

With just two full weeks left in 2013, Renaissance Capital reports that there have been 218 IPOs in the United States this year, the highest total since 2000, including big-name debuts from Silicon Valley such as Twitter, FireEye and Rocket Fuel. According to CB Insights' annual report, the upward trend could continue, as more tech companies in the U.S., and Silicon Valley in particular, are primed for an IPO.

The company, which tracks venture-capital investment, said Thursday that as many as 590 technology companies in the U.S. are believed to sport valuations of more than $100 million, with more than half -- 308 -- based in California. That's a big boost from the 472 companies with the same designation heading into 2013, 57 of which went public or were acquired this year.

"There's a lot of money sloshing around pursuing these tech companies," CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal told the San Francisco Business Times. "There's a lot of competition for those later stage companies that look to be potential winners."

In addition, 25 companies have perceived values of more than $1 billion, up from 15 last year, and the majority are Bay Area-based, such as AirBnB, Square, Pinterest, Box and Dropbox.

In a bit of good news for legendary Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has been reportedly dealing with an internal shake-up, CB Insights ranks the Menlo Park as the top firm in terms of companies primed to go public in 2014, with 50 including Square. Kleiner ranked fifth on that list last year, and switches places with rival Sequoia Capital, which dropped from first to fifth.

"Kleiner has been known historically for its ability to see around the corner for the next big thing. The jury is still out on whether they got their mojo back, because they have mostly been investing at the mid- to later stage," Sanwal told Bloomberg News.

And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 6.72, or 0.38 percent, to 1,775.5

Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/jowens510.